Virtually all portable electronic equipment, such as cordless and cellular telephones, lap-top computers, and facsimile machines, utilize one or more rechargeable batteries to supply the energy necessary to operate the equipment. Typically, the rechargeable batteries now used in present-day portable electronic equipment include those made from nickel-cadmium, lithium, lead-acid and metal hydrides. With such present-day rechargeable batteries, care must be taken not to over discharge the batteries during use. Otherwise, damage to the battery and/or the equipment may occur. For this reason, virtually all pieces of battery-operated portable electronic equipment include a monitoring circuit which operates to monitor the state of battery charge and to cut off the battery (i.e., interrupt the passage of current) once the charge drops below critical voltage.
At present, such monitoring circuits operate to determine the battery charge by sensing the magnitude of battery voltage. Once the battery voltage reaches a particular value (corresponding to the critical charge level), the battery is cut off. The cutoff battery voltage is typically set to provide a sufficient margin of safety so that the battery is cut off before any damage may be incurred. Unfortunately, battery voltage, under all conditions, is not a sufficiently sensitive measure of battery charge and for that reason, the cutoff voltage is usually set high enough to assure that, under worst-case conditions, the battery will be cut off before the charge drops below the critical value. As a consequence, under normal conditions, the charge level may not fall below the critical level once the cutoff voltage is reached, thereby reducing the potential amount of energy that may be withdrawn from the battery.
Thus, there is a need for a more accurate technique for sensing battery charge which maximizes the available amount of battery energy and increases the safety of the battery.